By the way, in order to strike down the law, the Court will have to go so far down a path unwinding decades of precedent on the Commerce clause, that we will be entering a long, deep tunnel of economic despair that will make 2008 seem a cakewalk, and the Citizens United decision relatively inconsequential. It will affect the rest of all of our lives as profoundly as the Great Depression affected our parents and grandparents. BTW, any one else seen or read The Hunger Games?

What would happen if a majority thought that that 1938 Wheat case was incorrect and they wanted to use this case to rein in Congress? Let's face it, anybody with a backyard garden could be stopped using that ruling. That ruling has created the commerce clause powers that threaten the US today.

I disagree with your optimism, the mandate gets killed and maybe the whole schbang!

_________________________
A proud member of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy, Massachusetts Chapter

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”Thomas Jefferson

Predicting an outcome from this court is dangerous. But when I am next at my computer with some time to provide links, I will provide some citations that show even conservative legal authorities (e.g., Reagan's Solicitor General) think the arguments are bogus. But, this is the same group that threw out 70 years of precedents to get to Citizens United, so I will be disappointed, but not shocked, to be wrong. Nonetheless, if this Court does seek to return us to pre-New Deal jurisprudence, it will certainly be a legacy - along the lines of Dred Scott, or Plessy v. Ferguson rather than Kansas City Board of Education or Miranda.

_________________________A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich

In June 2009, Ignagni addressed President Barack Obama: "You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass health care reform this year". In October 2009, AHIP issued a report projecting sharply rising costs with or without reform. The study was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. As described by Ignagni, "The report makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause healthcare costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system". Ignagni defended the report on PBS Newshour against the accusation by Nancy-Ann DeParle, the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, that the "industry puts their special interest ahead of the national interests here."

one cafeteria manager told me her net income is $1800/mo. Her portion of health insurance is $700.00 making her "net, net" $1100.00. She said every year her "net, net" is less money than the year before - even with a 1.5% raise - because her shared cost of health insurance goes up higher than her increases in salaries.

Sounds like she really, really needs ACA: Down near the poverty line, it supplies tax credits to limit your cost for a policy to 3% of your AGI. If she is sole earner and has a few kids, with $1800/month, her policy would cost her $54/month!

Want some irony? Nearly all of the cafeteria lady's children qualify for the National School Lunch Program - because their family income is so low.

I think the challengers have framed this as an issue of individual liberty, and one of the government forcing individuals to buy private products, and I do think that’s very innovative. In 230 years, the Supreme Court has never accepted such an argument. So what they’re doing is asking for a new rule.

The Supreme Court spent 91 minutes Wednesday operating on the assumption that it would strike down the key feature of the new health care law, but may have convinced itself in the end not to do that because of just how hard it would be to decide what to do after that. A common reaction, across the bench, was that the Justices themselves did not want the onerous task of going through the remainder of the entire 2,700 pages of the law and deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and most seemed to think that should be left to Congress. They could not come together, however, on just what task they would send across the street for the lawmakers to perform. The net effect may well have shored up support for the individual insurance mandate itself.

The provisions of the Affordable Care Act, mandating that individuals maintain insurance health insurance coverage in exchange for affordable access to coverage with no restrictions based on health conditions, recognize the interdependent nature of economic and social relationships. Under this view, untreated infectious disease or late-diagnosed cancer is perceived as a danger to the health of us all and as raising health insurance premiums for everyone.

While the Roberts court has not hesitated to reach broadly when it could have gone narrow — see Citizens United — the justices are undoubtedly aware that the eyes of the American public are upon them. Conservative justices like John Roberts and Antonin Scalia and the swing voter Anthony Kennedy will find it difficult to avoid the force of opinions supporting federal power that they either wrote or joined — even if they might be politically, privately opposed to the health care reform law.

The groundwork has been laid for conservative jurists to uphold the mandate. Two conservative court of appeals judges — the George W. Bush appointee Jeffrey Sutton from the Sixth Circuit and the Ronald Reagan appointee Laurence Silberman from the D.C. Circuit — provided compelling, conservative arguments for the mandate’s constitutionality.

_________________________A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich

...Let's face it, anybody with a backyard garden could be stopped using that ruling....

Oh. My. Gawd! They are coming for our gardens! It's a slippery slope, we have got to make sure the insurance companies keep screwing us!!!

Did I get it right?

My distrust of the federal government has been constant. Placing unlimited power in their hand, and upholding the individual mandate would do just that, is insane.

The Supremes are not ruling between insurance companies and Obamacare, they are ruling on whether the government can force Americans to do whatever they tell us to do. It sound melodramatic, but evenn the lawyer who was supposd to argue the case couldn't place a realistic limit on that power if the mandate is allowed to stand.

Given the choice between getting screwed by insurance companies and giving the government unlimited power to tell Americans how they have to spend their money, I will take my chances with the insurance companies. I mean, if I die from lack of insurance it will probably be a short term afliction, where as a federal government with unlimited opower is a life long curse. and yes, once they get that power they will use it. My proof? Look at how much the commerce clause has been expanded. Remember, that stoped a wheat farmer from growing wheat for himself and his animals. That wheat was never going into the marketplace, yet the FDR Supreme Court found a way to force some poor schmuck to spend money he shouldn't have had to spend. All in the name of the commerce clause.

_________________________
A proud member of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy, Massachusetts Chapter

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”Thomas Jefferson